Recently Acquired

A Girl and Her Books has added some fresh titles to her over-stuffed bookshelves, also known as The Collection. Here are some books that have recently been acquired and are next on the to-read list:

• The Radleys by Matt Haig
• Corked by Kathryn Borel
• Just Let Me Lie Down: Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working Mom by Kristin van Ogtrop
• Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech by Craig Silverman and Jeff Jarvis
• Dixie Spirits: True Tales of the Strange and Supernatural in the South by Christopher Kiernan Coleman
• A Whisper of Blood: A Collection of Modern Vampire Stories edited by Ellen Datlow

Reading Radar

A Girl and Her Books will periodically publish a short list of works on her Reading Radar - books that have not made it into the collection yet, but that are on the list of books to be purchased, read, and reviewed.

May/June's Reading Radar:

• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Insurgent by Veronica Roth
• Starters by Lissa Price
• The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Why I Will Always Read Real Books

The overwhelming barrage of advertisements heralding the latest LCD touchscreens, “apps,” wi-fi capability, and new lightweight, slim-line designs of e-readers makes me want to run screaming into a library, hurl myself into the stacks, and grab as many old, smelly books with dog-eared and yellow pages as I can, clutching them to my chest and saving them from a fate worse than ketchup stains combined with overdue stamps.

Will we see a day when books are exhibited alongside dinosaur bones and ancient suits of armor? Will the steady companions of my childhood be curated as simple relics of the past, the aged paper fossils of times that exist only in memory? I fear that in my lifetime, there will come a day when I can no longer browse the aisles of a Barnes and Noble and finger the pages of a brand-new book – smell the ink and paper, caress the dust jacket and its smoothness. 

Ironically, scads of today’s popular fiction are comprised of post-Apocalyptic, futurist nightmares in which Big Brother is really watching us, and our basic human rights are stripped away by the emotionless products of ‘humanity’ living in technologically-advanced society.  Certainly, imagining the executives at Amazon laughing maniacally behind the latest version of the Kindle Fire as they plot world domination is a stretch; however, imagining the next great novel that I want to read (or write) being reduced to the single click of ‘download’ or  ‘delete’ is a sobering thought.

When I was in graduate school, I researched “place” and reader-character interaction as part of a Southern literature seminar I conducted on Thulani Davis’s novel, 1959. Essentially, this novel could be considered the African-American version of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” only with more serious and widespread overtones about the birth of the Civil Rights era. My argument is that Davis uses a carefully-constructed “place” in her novel, using the fiction formula that served William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, along with Harper Lee: a town, or place, that is believable as such, in fiction, creates a significant emotional response in the reader’s interpretation of the text and connection to its characters. The interplay between character, reader, and place, then, construct a reading of a novel that can best be described as experiential. 

But I digress – my point here is that in my research, I read a book by J.A. Appleyard titled Becoming a Reader. In this classic text that studies the relationship between a reader and what S/he is reading, Appleyard thoroughly examines the psychological development that readers experience as they become more intellectually, emotionally, and physically involved in the process. I liken the progression through these stages (ultimately toward active reading) to the common experience we have when listening to music: whatever we are experiencing in our lives at the moment we first heard "Welcome to the Jungle" is the memory and feeling we forever attach to that song, even if only subconsciously. It is because we are interacting with the music in the same way we interact with a text - we are feeling it, thinking about it, responding to it (even if involuntarily so), and allowing it to become a part of our intellectual and emotional landscape. Therefore, this is why I remember being squished to near-death underneath a purple bean bag chair in the basement of a childhood friend's home when he and some of our school friends thought it would be a great idea to smother me. Every time I hear "Welcome to the Jungle," I recall the sticky bounces and clucks of evil glee as pre-teen boys pounded the bean bag harder and harder into my tear-stained face. That was not my idea of a fun birthday party.

Simply put, readers attach emotions to books. We take as much to the text as we take from it, imbuing it with the minutia of our daily lives, the scents of our kitchens, the tremble in our nervous fingers, the heartbeat of the little league double-header, and the crackly scarlet sunburn we brought home from vacation. Books are as much a part of our experience as we are a part of the experience in the book: I was recovering from a botched Caesarean-section in the hospital while Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were camping in the woods for several hundred pages in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All of us were scared, miserable, and feeling alone in an uncertain world that had changed dramatically from the world we knew and navigated with ease. 

Who's not to say that we can develop relationships with e-readers? I'm sure we can. After all, one of the next books on my list to review is Sleeping with Your Smartphone. But the palpable, tangible act of turning a page and the joy of inhaling a book's delicious scent, old or new, cannot be replaced by any touchscreen or "app." 

The sacred private space in which we interact with books, despite our tastes in genre, is a holy place. It is a real, human experience that involves all of our senses and various levels of our ability to think, reason, and feel. Reading a book, a real, honest-to-God book, is so much more than learning about the wives of Henry VIII or getting lost in Middle Earth with hairy-footed Hobbits. Reading a real book is as meaningful as touching a wet turtle shell for the first time, having that first sip of eggnog on grandma's back porch while watching the snow fall, or unexpectedly holding hands with someone who makes your heart flutter before you decided if you were ready to hold hands or not. 

When we read a book, we live a book, both with it and inside it. Technology does not create warm, fuzzy feelings (unless the batteries get hot). Digital thumbprints do not carry memories and smells, or even germs. The mystery of who might have read a book before us and the voyeuristic fun we have when we try to decipher tiny marginal notes or, even better, find a bookmark or scrap of paper inside a used book, cannot be replicated on an e-reader. E-readers do not engage our senses or emotions as deeply, and change the act of reading so that it is no longer an intimate exchange. Real books do. I speculate that the humanity in that experience is merely incidental.

Twilight for Moms? Review of Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James

EL James's controversial novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, will not be made available to the citizens of Gaston County, according to a recent newspaper article. The Director of the Gaston County Public Library says the book is better suited for a more "urban" and "diverse" community.

From the moment I saw the article on the front page of the Gaston Gazette, I knew that Fifty Shades of Grey would be the next title on my bookshelf, the relic of a hard-won search for controversial printed material and my victory flag for claiming and defending First Amendment rights. With a headline proclaiming "Steamy Novel Not on Shelves," I immediately wondered if, in 2012, the most liberal of times we have yet to experience in millenial America, a fiction, exploring the romantic underpinnings of a consensual sadomasochistic relationship, had truly been banned. Less than twenty-four hours later, I was in line at Barnes and Noble behind another customer salivating to get her hands on the salacious tale. I found myself in line after a thorough scan of the fiction and romance sections yielded nothing but empty hands - and when I realized that the entire back shelf behind the cashier's counter was absolutely stacked from one end to the next with multiple copies of each book in the Fifty trilogy, a sea of black books with gray and white single-image covers staring out from behind, just out of reach. Shoppers would have to ask for a copy of each novel in order to purchase it.

While most cases of book banning in the U.S. occur in school libraries (usually as a result of parental rabble-rousing), my very own Gaston County Public Library refused to add UK novelist E L James's Fifty trilogy to its collection, citing its modern eroticism as the primary reason. According to Gazette reporter Diane Turbeyfill's interview with two local library directors in Gaston and Cleveland counties, the process of banning a book is one that can be initiated by library patrons for a variety of reasons. The Gaston County Library Director noted that she felt James's novel would be better placed in a Charlotte library, stating that a more "urban" and "diverse" population could appreciate the book. To a college English instructor, writer, and general supporter of human rights, these words were a stinging slap in the face to the academic and democratic communities. In fact, I found the director's statement to be dangerous, evidence of censorship stabbing the very heartbeats which propel a community to education and information: literacy and public access.

The novel is erotic. It addresses a difficult subject; it will make some readers uncomfortable. Some chapters made me uncomfortable. Fifty Shades of Grey is not, however, a unique piece of fiction, an incredibly well-written novel, or an original plot. In a world where the advent of e-readers has launched fledgling writers to quick and widespread readership, and in some cases, fame, such a to-do about a piece of erotic literature by an otherwise unknown writer seems not only unnecessary, but also excessively reactionary.

While many passages in this novel are scintillating and exciting, for me, its too-similar plot was a major turnoff. Fifty Shades of Grey is essentially Twilight - for moms. Dubbed "Mommy porn" by impressed and disgusted readers alike, the story of Ana Steele and Christian Grey might as well be that of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen - only in a whips-and-chains playroom high above the Seattle skyline as opposed to the rainy town of Forks, the setting of Stephenie Meyer's series. But wait - the novel is set in Washington, and follows the romantic yearnings of disyllabic-named female protagonists who are in love with rich, brooding social outcasts who offer little more than smoldering stares, unrealistic desire and innuendo, and an endless supply of fast cars, too-perfect families, lavish gifts, and alleged dark, secretive pasts. In fact, the similarities between Fifty and Twilight are numerous, almost embarrassing at times:

 

• Both protagonists work at a hardware store in Washington and study English literature (Bella reads Romeo and Juliet and Anna reads Tess of the D'Urbervilles). The correlation of each couple to its associated fiction is minimal, at best.
• The love interests of each are somber, perceptibly complex Heathcliff-like brooders who happen to be classical music aficionados and accomplished pianists who own the latest technology, clothing, and cars. Oh, and they can name obscure operas after listening to only the first three bars.
• Money is no object. Lavish excess abounds in the hands of the love interest and his family.
• Both women are irreparably insecure, relying on sarcasm and quirk to captivate their male counterparts. Their otherwise lack of enthusiasm for life in general is mind-numbing. Neither offers anything substantial as a heroine.
• The smells, facial expressions, episodic darkening and brightening of eyes, and low-toned voices of Edward and Christian may as well be generated by the same fictional person. Down to the "I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it-but-something-is-wrong" appeal, beauty is about it for these boys.
• James uses the words "taciturn" and "body wash" like Meyer uses "ochre" and "blood" - incessantly.
• Both books lack quality editing, contain repetitive prose, and never reach an emotional depth greater than "he loves me, he loves me not." 
• The cover similarities featuring single, monochromatic objects contrasted against a solid black background are disappointing. Like Twilight, the object featured on the cover is a minimal part of the storyline (Christian uses a gray necktie to bind Ana's wrists), but does convey a larger, symbolic meaning. 

I could list more eerie similarities, but my "Eureka!" moments lost their joy when I discovered the origin of James's writing inspiration. Formerly a fanfic writer, James penned Fifty Shades of Grey as an afterthought to a short-story originally titled "Master of the Universe" (although I'm sure the correlation to He-Man is contrived, at best), that was inspired by Twilight. Support from the fanfic community inspired her to self-publish the first novel, which, after gaining popularity, sold ten million print copies in six weeks, according to multiple readers who have posted reviews on their own sites.

Little in this novel is meritorious. Despite the unabashed and deliberate revising of Twilight,for an adult audience, there are some elements of the story that are fun, frivolous, and playful. Most women are suckers for a good love story, and will be entertained and amused by the cat-and-mouse intrigue between James's characters. Women who enjoyed Twilight will find the sexy parts that dominate this book eye-poppingly direct (although one only has a limited number of ways to describe orgasm before reeking of Roget's). In fact, I would wager that James breaks some new ground in erotic literature (a long-criticized genre for its lack of substance and meaning) in that she has been able to take it mainstream by infusing it with a slightly longer plotline that develops slowly - the first juicy scene doesn't occur until well after one-hundred pages.

Simply put, Fifty Shades of Grey is a guilty pleasure requiring no intellectual or emotional investment on behalf of its reader. I think its success mainly hinges on the fact that reading an erotic novel that details the basics of BDSM is a safe way to explore the fetish community without risk or social rejection. Reading this sort of book is also a walk into the unknown and the forbidden, and participating in it without directly being involved or affected. It's voyeurism at its best, and readers need not feel too guilty: after all, sex sells and America is a consumer's paradise.

I will read the other two books in the trilogy - Fifty was fun, and I'd like to see two scenarios unfold: what James will do to reconcile the terrible ending of the first book (which was, frankly, maddeningly incomplete in that no major plot lines are neatly tied up) and how closely she will ride Stephenie Meyer's coattails. I figure if she is going to ride her ass, she may as well pull her hair. After all, the two of them are undoubtedly enjoying the fiction formula to which their readers will gladly submit - time and time again.

*Note: If you are interested in how this subject has made its way mainstream, check out Newsweek Magazine's recent cover story "Working Women's Fantasies," which received not only intense criticism for the racy cover, but an overpouring of online outrage at the popular publication's walk on the wild side. Apparently, fetishism is not a newsmaker, and is isn't worthy of national intrigue despite its gradual blending into a variety of our entertainment media.

Meeting Author Charlaine Harris

In my experiences as a student and instructor of literature and composition, I have been fortunate to have met authors such as Nikki Giovanni, Janisse Ray, Jo Carson, Cathy Smith Bowers, Lee Smith, and Alan Michael Parker.

I introduced Giovanni at a poetry reading at The University of Virginia's College at Wise - quite the intimidating feat, since I had written essays about her work - mainly her violent poems from the Civil Rights era that railed against white culture's willful resistance to integrated society. Later that same year, I interviewed Lee Smith when she visited the campus; I worked full-time as a staff reporter for The Coalfield Progress, a biweekly newspaper, and covered the local education and academic beat. I remember that Smith gave me one of her check stubs with her Hillsborough, NC address on it so I could mail her a copy of the article after it went to print. I still have it somewhere. Smith's novel Black Mountain Breakdown was the first novel I ever wrote a college-level essay on - and now I'm so old, I can only remember that two characters were named Crystal and Agnes.

Meeting Janisse Ray was an otherworldly experience for me - I felt she sang my life with her words in her memoir/environmental essay collection entitled Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, in which she describes growing up a dirt-poor country girl in rural northern Georgia and pursuing her dreams of becoming a writer and academic. I sat across from her in an elegant reception room at The University of Richmond, and watched as she was served a plate of chicken, pasta, and salad. Ray is a vegetarian, and she raises chickens. I was mortified. However, Ray smiled, ate around the chicken, and talked with me and some other fortunate students invited to this private reception as if she had known us for years. I found her organic farming, self-sustaining lifestyle admirable and fascinating, especially how she visited her local Wendy's for donations of old vegetable oil that she converted to fuel for her farm vehicles. She talked to me about my dreams of writing, of teaching, of making a difference and leaving behind my Appalachian footprints in the written word. In fact, she is my sole inspiration for writing my own memoir, which exists in various draft stages at this point. In the front of my copy of Ecology, she wrote, "Stephanie: Tell the story of Appalachia. You are the one."

Those were some mighty big expectations to live up to, but I will endeavor until the day I die to tell that story.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Charlaine Harris. Many know her because her books are the novels that inspired the HBO hit series TrueBlood. Originally known as the "Sookie Stackhouse novels" or The Southern Vampire Mysteries series, Harris's tales of supernatural exploits are colored with Southern charm and feminine wit. A no-nonsense, yet vulnerable protagonist, Sookie, is a telepathic waitress at a local bar who frequently finds herself drawn to the undead and the two-natured communities as a liaison and consort. The novels employ a huge cast of diverse characters and the little town of Bon Temps, Louisiana comes alive as if it were a real place. According to Eudora Welty's essay, "Place in Fiction," Harris has certainly been successful in creating a fictional community that is as real as the ones that inspired it.

 This is only half the crowd who came to hear Charlaine Harris speak about the conclusion of the Sookie Stackhouse series, which will end with its thirteenth installment in 2013. Harris entertained the audience with stories of her rise to fame, her creative quirks, personal triumphs, and hints about upcoming projects during a 45-minute question and answer session.

When I met Harris at a Barnes & Noble question-and-answer session and book signing for her newest addition to the series, Deadlocked, I was not surprised that she was so humble and welcoming. Her down-to-earth nature did not shock me. Her voice rings in her prose in such a way that you feel like you know her already - and my every expectation of how she would be as a speaker was flawlessly met. Humorous, matter-of-fact, and unabashedly honest, Harris quipped that she "cried all the way to the bank" when a fan asked her if she was upset with how HBO's producers had changed the plot of her novels in both major and minor ways. Most touching was how she justified abandoning her character Lily Bard of the Shakespeare-inspired mystery series of the same name. "I am a rape survivor and Lily Bard was my way of dealing with that dark place. I decided to move on and go forward, so I had to leave Lily Bard behind."

 Charlaine Harris signs my copies of Deadlocked and Many Bloody Returns: Stories of Birthdays with Bite at a Charlotte book-signing event in May 2012.

I enjoyed hearing Harris talk about her personal approach to writing, and I wish my students could have heard her. She makes writing sound exactly like what it is: a process in which one must find the most comfortable way to do what must be done. She is obviously a woman who loves what she does. It tickles me to death to see a Southern woman with a sense of old-South style and humor be skyrocketed to unbelievable fame in less than a decade. Harris remained very real about the difficult exchange between writers, publishers, media managers, and all the other middlemen that are involved in giving life to an author's work by releasing it to the public. I told Mrs. Harris a few things about myself when we had an opportunity to speak, and I told her that her fans (including me) love her and love what she does - to always keep doing it as long as she was able. She remarked, "I don't know what else I would do."

I have often said the same thing about teaching and writing, myself. For those of us who live our lives through words, nothing could come closer to immortality than leaving the legacy of our stories behind.

Review of On Hitler's Mountain by Irmgard Hunt

“A universal answer may never be found, but perhaps an examination of just one family, mine, can provide additional understanding of what paved the way to Hitler’s success and led to wholesale disaster” (x). This line from Irmgard Hunt’s memoir, On Hitler’s Mountain: My Nazi Childhood, succinctly defines the task of her book: to explore the inner workings of Nazi Germany and its dramatic transformations. In short, the memoir reveals the process of Hunt’s own realization and acceptance of the future of her country, embodied in a detailed family history that is closely bound to and influenced by Adolf Hitler’s political agenda. Divided into four parts, On Hitler’s Mountain surveys Hunt’s family origins, emphasizing the poverty and desperation which fostered her parents’ hope and faith in Hitler, and narrates the major events and turning points in the Second World War with amiable clarity. The text aligns Hunt’s childhood experiences with the collective feeling of change and uncertainty shared by others who lived in Nazi Germany. On Hitler’s Mountain is a refreshing account of World War II that offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a family that essentially lived in the Fuhrer’s backyard; Hunt’s memoir blends Nazi with nostalgia, evoking both curiosity and empathy in the reader. 

Hunt’s introductory prose wavers between painting romanticized vignettes of rural German life and being laden with minute and uninteresting familial details. Hunt explores every facet of family life during the early chapters which describe her youth. Recounting how her grandparents and parents met, and the various jobs they did to be able to survive occupies much of the initial chapters. Utilizing anecdotes and interviews from family members throughout the book, Hunt is able to recount the earliest moments of her childhood, including her birth, with alarmingly specific detail. She portrays a seemingly normal childhood; later, as the Nazi philosophy begins to creep into and interfere with every aspect of it, the reader is amazed with how quickly Hitler’s influence spreads. Detailing family life is necessary, however, to establish the nostalgic tone with which Hunt describes Nazi Germany, the seat of her childhood memories, and to clearly illustrate the attitudes and perceptions of middle class civilians prior to and during Hitler’s regime.

Hunt’s narrative personalizes the far-reaching effects of Nazism on civilian life; throughout the early chapters, she references several episodes in which the world around her is changing without reason or justification. A minor, but powerful example is when Hunt describes the traditional Christmas songs her family used to sing, which are soon replaced by Nazi-approved lyrics. Christmas, usually regarded as a time of childlike anticipation, is described as a time of confusion and uncertainty, and serves as a grand metaphor illustrating how even the steepest of traditions crumbled under Hitler’s iron fist. While On Hitler’s Mountain seems to move slowly at first, the narration echoes the gradual infusion of all things Nazi into Hunt’s childhood home. At first, Nazism seems distant, but it soon becomes very real and concrete. The most poignant image is that of Hunt being trained by her father to raise her arm in the ‘Heil, Hitler’ salute in front of his portrait at the tender age of three: “We stood in front of the Fuhrer’s portrait…I laughed at first and thought we were playing some kind of game but quickly realized Vati was dead serious. He insisted I thrust my small arm forward in just the right way” (62). Descriptions of events such as this one appear in each chapter, and further illustrate how Hunt’s family regarded Hitler with unwavering reverence.

Of particular interest is Hunt’s ability to relate history with a distinctly bifurcated tone. She manages to simultaneously express childlike wonder and adult wisdom when relaying her experiences. She tells about her childhood friend Ruthchen, whose name is changed to Ingrid, “one of the most favored Germanic names” (58). Incredulous, Hunt listens as her mother explains that “it is better for her not to have a Jewish name” (58). Both curiosity and innocence are indicated when Hunt explains, “I had no idea what Jewish was, but it could not be good if you had to give up your name because of it” (58). The wisdom of adulthood surfaces as Hunt reflects that Mutti explains the name change “without obvious malice in her voice” (58). Other times, Hunt masters a mixture of sardonic irony and bitter, unforgiving sarcasm in her prose. She explains that she never understood whether the beautiful French dolls sent to her and her sister by Frau Goring as a “special, neighborly gift” when they lost their father were “paid for or simply taken from occupied France as war booty” (126). Yet, the dolls remained “wonderful, luxurious toys providing happiness and escape,” solidifying the ambiguous nature of the gesture (127). The effect of Hunt’s dual-natured tone is one that emphasizes the uncertainty she felt as a child experiencing these events, and the sobering truth she realizes as an adult reflecting upon them.

Items of historical significance are presented with surprising authority and without sacrificing conversational narration in On Hitler’s Mountain, mostly because they are aligned with their immediate effects on Hunt’s family. In the beginning of the memoir, she effectively summarizes the German distaste for the Treaty of Versailles and shows the events that propel Hitler’s rise to power. Throughout the novel, events throughout the war such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the annex of the Sudetenland, and most importantly for Hunt, the invasion of Poland in 1939 are intertwined with her family history, presenting them as significant markers in her lifetime. She writes:

Three months after my birthday trip to Salzburg, Hitler sent fifty German divisions into Poland…Eight months after the invasion, I saw Mutti’s face fall as she read the official letter that called my father, now thirty-four, to join the army. The reality of war and the inevitability of our personal involvement suddenly became clear to her in a way it had not before. (104-5)

Rather than a smattering of the dates and objectives of military campaigns, treaties, or political agendas, these significant historical moments are directly linked to personal experience. Briefly recounting an incident in which her neighbor’s invalid child is taken away by Nazis, Hunt reveals the darkest details of Hitler’s euthanasia program from a childlike perspective. The reader appreciates her inclusion of historical detail, which is unassumingly presented. Her prose, colored by the German language, makes the history both accessible and interesting, if only relevant because it directly impacts her daily routine.

At times, Hunt’s use of German phrases is daunting in frequency, but is both interesting and meaningful. Each chapter is filled with German words and expressions that authenticate the memoir and recreate the era. It is clear that Hunt maintains an affinity for her mother tongue, not only because of the sheer amount of German words which are used, but also because of the careful selection of words that convey both nostalgia and great emotional depth. Likely familiar with the lexicon of the Second World War, the average reader will recognize words like Luftwaffe and Lebensraum. Words like Setzkasten, however, are ones the reader learns to appreciate: “Every first-grader had a Setzkasten, a flat wooden case, about the size of a cigar box, containing tiny cardboard rectangles depicting upper and lowercase letters stashed in small individual compartments” (l09). A tool used to form syllables and words, the Setzkasten that Hunt inherited from an older child was missing several of its original cardboard letters. On her father’s last furlough after six months of service in France, he “drew [her] a whole supply of beautiful, black Gothic letters that were just as good as the printed ones” (109). The Setzkasten is a meaningful object for Hunt, especially after her father’s death. Hunt provides, when available, direct English translations for German words. Other times, she includes brief descriptions or definitions that help familiarize the reader with concepts or items specific to Nazi German culture, such as the Familien Stammbuch (family record book) and the Mutterkreuz (Mother’s Cross).

Photographs and captions further personalize the memoir and strengthen its overall impact. The staunch, hard faces of Hunt’s ancestors stare from the pages like proud sentries guarding her story. Adding dimensions of realism and nostalgia, the photographs acquaint the reader with the members of Hunt’s family who were most affected by the war and provide visual representation of how hard life in Nazi Germany truly was. There are just as many, if not more, images of Adolph Hitler himself, including a brooding, yet intimate, profile of him surveying the landscape on Obersalzburg. A striking portrait of Hitler holding two small, distinctly Aryan children on his lap evokes fear and discomfort: the children’s faces flanking Hitler’s posed, political smile appear confused and worried, searching the reader for help and comfort.

Hunt includes not only photographs of people, but also of objects and places that are directly related to her story. A favorite image is one of “decorative bowls with alpine flowers” painted by Hunt’s father, who worked as a painter in a china factory (56). Images of her mother’s diaries and financial recordkeeping reiterate Hitler’s direct influence on the family; her mother’s hand logged small contributions to the Nazi party and proudly announced the Fuhrer’s birthday in her personal journals. The captions to these photographs are as much a part of the memoir as the images they accompany; not only do they provide an explanation for what is in each picture, but they also offer uncluttered, powerful statements. Another significant image is a portrait of a smiling Hunt at her school desk, pressing a pen to paper, simply captioned, “In spite of everything, I learn to write” (132).

Readers will marvel at anecdotes that reveal what life in Nazi Germany was like for school-aged children. Descriptions of emergency preparedness training at school illustrate Hunt and her classmates learning to breathe through gas masks and evacuate to bomb shelters. Hunt recounts a conversation with a school teacher who bribes her with cookies to repeat the condemning things her grandfather had to say about Hitler. Most appalling, however, is a passage that describes the principal of Hunt’s elementary school forcing her to repeatedly greet him with “Heil Hitler” outside his office door until he is satisfied with her performance and lets her in; the end result is a nine-year old reduced to tears because her salute does not, in the principal’s opinion, show the appropriate amount of respect to the Fuhrer’s name. Later, she is treated like a pseudo-celebrity by adults who find out she lives in close proximity to Hitler and has even been photographed sitting on his knee; this revelation causes her to be favored by her fanatical Nazi teachers, who rejoice in having her stand in front of her classmates and recite the gruesome details of how her father died fighting for Hitler. He is the presence that looms over every fact of her childhood, lurking throughout the school day as she is educated, smiling from the painted faces of the dolls sent by Frau Goring, hiding in the words of holiday songs, and living on the mountain just beyond her home.

The first half of the memoir is dedicated to describing a life that is eventually consumed by Nazism; the latter half describes the end of the war and the process of unraveling Hitler’s hold on those who had been so devoted to him. Reviewer Dale Farris writes, “Hunt's is a precautionary reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought” (The Library Journal). A significant portion of the latter chapters illustrates the effects of this choice, exploring Mutti’s own varied reactions to the reality of what Hitler had done to their beloved Germany: anger, disappointment, guilt, shame, and eventually, peace. Though the memoir is largely about Hunt’s personal thoughts and experiences, a great deal of the book is dependent on the changing attitudes of her family members as they begin to realize the truth. One reviewer notes that the memoir “[ends] with some sense of closure among the family members… [and] satisfies the reader that the author has made peace with her family and with her own bizarre upbringing” (Scott). Hunt herself explains that “Slowly the stigma of being German has receded, and I am coming to terms with the memories of my life as a girl on what for a short, dark time was Hitler’s mountain” (318). Her book is a living testament for anyone who lived, like her, in those uncertain and fearful times and searched for first for answers, and later for reconciliation; it preserves the aspects of childhood worth nostalgia and gives new life to those that were absorbed and destroyed by Nazi culture.

Works Cited

“Book Summary and Media Reviews: On Hitler’s Mountain.” Book Browse. 18 Sept.

       2008. http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1544

Farris, Dale. Rev. of On Hitler’s Mountain by Irmgard Hunt. The Library Journal. .”

Book Browse. 18 Sept. 2008. http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1544

Hunt, Irmgard. On Hitler’s Mountain: My Nazi Childhood. London: Atlantic Books, 2005.

Scott, Barbara Bamberger. Rev. of On Hitler’s Mountain by Irmgard Hunt. Curled Up With a Good  Book. 20 September 2008. http://www.curledup.com/hitlersm.htm

Review of The Queen of Subtleties: A Novel of Anne Boleyn

I adored this piece of historical fiction. Suzannah Dunn knows her Tudor dynasty and shows it with subtle references to minor, quotidian things that only a true Tudor admirer would know. Her use of modern language (both in narration and dialogue) is an interesting twist, and one I think that is meant to draw the reader into the Reformation by making the characters more personable and easier for modern audiences to like and to relate to their own feelings. Undoubtedly, a parallel between this novel's portrayal of Anne Boleyn and the acting style mastered by Natalie Dormer in the Showtime series, The Tudors, can be drawn. The quick tongued self-absorption of this character is only matched by Dunn's sensitive handling of her dynamic, and often extreme, emotions. I'm not entirely sure that the secondary narration of Lucy Cornwallis was completely fitting; in many ways, it detracted from the main story, and was not fully developed enough to constitute a second narrator. The tidbits of post-Boleyn information we glean from the fictional narrator Cornwallis are not worth breaking up the more colorful tapestry that is woven through Anne's interior monologue. The prose in this novel is fluid and descriptive with several instances of bitingly sharp expression and wit - any fan of the infamous King Henry VIII is surely to enjoy this well-researched and creatively expressed piece of fiction.

Review of Nice to Come Home to by Rebecca Flowers

This book was typical chick-lit - love story gone awry interspersed with a few really profound sentences and funny moments. Ultimately, I was disappointed with the plot; Flowers allows one of the major characters, Patsy, to actually overshadow the protagonist, and seems to lose grasp of where the story is going about three-fourths of the way through. She conveniently recalls characters who have little to no development other than mention of a name to fill in latter parts of the story and reaches for a few unbelievable straws to bring the novel to a close. It occupied me for about three evenings before bed, but did not hold my interest enough to pursue other works by this author (Rebecca Flowers). The writer has some greater potential that is unfortunately not reflected by the poorly planned resolution to this story. If you need some mindless reading with a a few interesting characters, pick it up. If you want an expertly-executed plot with surprises and resolutions, look elsewhere.